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/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> The Cafe >> Space Shuttle Main Engine Test /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1439532732 Message started by Sonny on 08/13/15 at 23:12:11 |
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Title: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by Sonny on 08/13/15 at 23:12:11 I love this kind of power. NASA tested an updated controller on one of the remaining RS-25 SSME's today at Stennis. Man, those things just go and go. Video: http://www.space.com/30254-nasa-tests-new-brain-for-old-rs-25-rocket-engine-video.html Digger could confirm this, but I don't think the Space Shuttle ever had a main engine failure. Amazing when you consider the forces and pressures involved. |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by Dave on 08/14/15 at 03:42:45 Pretty cool....... Does the EPA make them use that crappy E10 fuel? :-? |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by Sonny on 08/14/15 at 04:04:51 754E4354454952544F474A55260 wrote:
No way, daddy-o, that's liquid hydrogen and LOX burning there... nothing coming out of that nozzle but heat and water vapor. And for all the cleanliness of the fuel, incredible energy density. The only drawback is, it's expensive to produce and hard to handle. Otherwise, we'd be running our scooters on it... 8-) |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by Dave on 08/14/15 at 04:49:48 Yea....I know the shuttle is LOX and Hydrogen - I just hated to miss an opportunity to take a shot a the EPA and their ethanol mandate. Looking at the vapor trail from that engine, it is obvious the end result of the combustion process is just water vapor.....and there is no need for an EPA mandated catalytic converter (another shot a the EPA). I wonder how far from the nozzle the exhaust temperature drops below scorching hot? With water vapor being the only exhaust product....it would seem the exhaust would cool pretty quickly. |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by verslagen1 on 08/14/15 at 07:40:26 Pretty sure they're burning hydrazine. |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by LANCER on 08/14/15 at 08:23:32 Do you think I could stuff this into my '96 Savage frame ? ? Light up my life baby !!!! |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by Dave on 08/14/15 at 08:44:35 786B7C7D626F696B603F0E0 wrote:
Is that liquid Hydrogen with 10% ethanol added so that NASA is "green"? |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by verslagen1 on 08/14/15 at 09:18:59 605B5641505C47415A525F40330 wrote:
Is that liquid Hydrogen with 10% ethanol added so that NASA is "green"?[/quote] WWII rocket fuel, definitely not green. LH would be green, but not as powerful. I wonder if there's a LENR fuel. :-? |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by verslagen1 on 08/14/15 at 09:20:54 5B56595452450500370 wrote:
There's been a couple of pulse jets strapped to bicycles. |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by Kris01 on 08/14/15 at 10:51:23 I've often wondered how these things don't end up as a puddle on the floor. The heat must be intense! |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by verslagen1 on 08/14/15 at 11:49:54 774E554F0C0D3C0 wrote:
They spray a lot of water into the flame trail. |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by Sonny on 08/14/15 at 11:57:51 I've often wondered how these things don't end up as a puddle on the floor. The heat must be intense! The nozzle is cooled by letting some pressure off the liquid oxygen, which has already been supercooled to get it into a dense liquid state, and circulating it through tubing wrapped around the nozzle before it goes to the combustion chamber, cooling it, same as the way your AC works -- Bernoulli's Principle. Compression makes heat, reducing pressure cools. You can see the tubing there on the outside of the nozzle. The system is designed so the rate of cooling is ferocious. |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by Kris01 on 08/14/15 at 12:26:12 One small LOX leak and the whole thing becomes a Roman candle! |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by Sonny on 08/14/15 at 12:31:20 4B584F4E515C5A58530C3D0 wrote:
No, Vers, hydrazine is a monopropellant (doesn't require mixing w/ a separate oxidizer) used in thrusters and also was used to run the APUs on the Shuttle. It is nasty, toxic stuff. |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by dontwannapickle on 08/16/15 at 08:13:43 Yep, SSME fuel is hydrogen and oxygen. In addition to providing ground support acquiring data for every Shuttle flight since the second one, I was fortunate to be able to digitize the flight data from the Shuttle's on-board recorder for the whole time the Shuttle flew. One of the things my customers were concerned about was the health of the turbo-pumps that supplied the fuel to the engines in order to decide if the engines were suitable for reflight or needed rebuilding. There are vibration sensors around the perimeter of the pumps and if there was a noise spike in the sound spectrum they could tell which bearing was going bad by the frequency of the noise. (Sorta like how some of y'all can tell the state of your cam-chain tensioner by feeling the vibes coming from the engine cover with your heel.) I recall that there were a couple times that an engine was shutdown early, but it happened late enough in the powered portion of the flight that the Shuttle was able to still make it to orbit with the remaining engines. Of course, there were many times the engines failed or indicated failure and thus launches were aborted due to engine problems. There were never any catastrophic SSME failures, though. |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by Sonny on 08/16/15 at 12:46:45 What a cool job to have. I used to wonder about the consequences of a main engine failure. If it happened early, when the solids were burning, esp. to the center/top engine, I would think it would be impossible to keep the shuttle on trajectory. Once the solids were gone you could run the bad engine's fuel thru the remaining good ones, move the nozzles to correct and press on. I remember well that on every launch they had engine failure call-outs for the different abort sites and then for press to orbit. You know, the shuttle was an incredible human achievement, just for complexity, ingenuity, pure can-do thinking and balls. It was so on the edge that it was facing obsolescence from the get-go, but it kept being improved and it had a hell of a run. It was a glory. |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by old_rider on 08/16/15 at 21:08:21 I always wondered about a "pressurized water assist", you know.... like the pump up water rockets they used to sell? Use super high pressure water to assist on the "lift-off" portion of the flight......it would also dampen the noise and keep any "chemical blow off" to a smaller scale. But can a large enough amount be pressurized? I wanna be on that team! LOL.... Lets see how high we can launch an LS650! With just water pressure! I mean like, the smaller satellites weigh about the same. |
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Title: Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Post by Dave on 08/17/15 at 03:29:01 7370786E7578796E1C0 wrote:
I think the problem becomes one of scale. You can pressurize a 2 liter soda bottle filled with water, and get it to launch. The thin plastic bottle can withstand the needed pressure. However when you scale that up 100,000 times for a full size rocket - the pressure vessel that can withstand that high of water pressure becomes overwhelming weight wise.....and you basically have a stationary water tank. The pressure vessels that are used in the real thing are heavy - but they are holding liquids (hydrogen/oxygen) that produce incredible amounts of energy and can lift their own weight - plus the weight of the rocket. |
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